Australia - Six states..and that funny little island.

[satay]

Hmmmm I have 4 freeloaders too ...although they finished their 3 weeks ago! Madge is the only one that has started laying!

Yes i have about 50 not laying. Only ones laying is one marans and both lots of belgians.

 

[Anniebee]

Hello everyone , i have just joined the rank of being a chook owner , i have two Isa Browns , decided to go with these girls being a beginner . I live in suburbia and we have built a nice , comfy , safe coop and pen for them , i can watch them from my living room . I purchased a Omlet Go Up coop for them and built a pen around it , to make sure it was pest proof , only problem is so far they don't want to sleep in the coop they want to perch on top of it . I am picking them up and putting them in the coop every night , we have had them for about a week , i'm hoping they get the idea soon . Cheers everyone !!

mareeirene and Em169. Happy to meet you. This is great thread, and I hope many more of the 'old crowd' return too. Many missing since BYC changed its format.

Cheers.

 

[Fancychooklady]

Hi there everyone , too many ppsts to catch up on so I'll just pick up where I left off. My girls are just coming back into lay as the snow begins to fall.

 

[Anniebee]

Not happy Jan today. Got up this morning and I am guessing the fox got into my turkey pen and killed one of my pet male turkeys little g and one of my pekins.. It dug so deep into the ground that it dug under wire and the corro.. Looks like i need to find something else again to deter them. Have electric fence up. Wire dug into the gound as well as corro and an 8ft fence.. Moving big g and the others from that pen to the main chicken coop tonight until i can figure something out. R.I.P little G you were one of our breeders at first but mostly my pet for 8 years.

satay ... so sad to hear of your losses to a dammed fox. Especially little G. Surprises me that a fox would dig so deep. Feral dogs might though. Foxes are particularly prevalent in recent weeks, around the Dandenong Ranges, Victoria. I have used pure strong ammonia around the fences and gates, and spread around the back garden. I also leave a little of my dogs' fresh droppings each day - foxes often don't like to come into an area where they smell dog. But if they are hungry enough, they will. Also, if husband or any other male member of family is willing human male urine has a great effect on warning off foxes. Lady pee doesn't cut it apparently To make sure you don't think I have gone mad, here is a link ( American so there's a few things we cannot do ) ... that lists a lot of the possibles for ridding of foxes. https://www.getridofthings.com/pests/animals/get-rid-of-foxes/

So hope you can figure out how to stop these blighters doing their horrid work. My girls are locked up every night, later in the summer, early in the winter. It's a ritual with me. However, foxes will occasionally hunt during the day - which worries me.

All the best ~

 

[Anniebee]

My girls are all over their moulting, and I thought it might be a while before any eggs appeared, however Mindy Araucana has begun laying again - weird long shaped eggs, they don't have a more pointy end than the other - both ends are the same shape ... and, they are olive in colour. The only blue one she has laid, she did so on bricks - it broke, she ate the yolk and left the sticky mess for me to clean up.

My other two 'big' girls have not yet begun to lay again, and I doubt that Molly RIR ever will - I think she has run out of eggs. Mandy is eating up a storm and becoming a little more enthusiastic with her 'talking'. She is walking again - albeit slowly - but at least she is up on her feet and not flapping across the ground as she was earlier this year. Treated her legs with vaseline as I finally suspected scaly mite, so decided to smother the mites with the ointment. Something seems to have worked. I now put it on her only once a week. The strange thing is, Molly RIR has no scaly mite - yet they sleep very close together ...... in a nesting box !!! I massage the vaseline up into her leg feathers, and stretch her legs out gently. Often do that just when giving her a cuddle, which she loves.

Cheers all ~~~

 

[Anniebee]

Hi there everyone , too many ppsts to catch up on so I'll just pick up where I left off. My girls are just coming back into lay as the snow begins to fall.

Fancy .... so good to see you back. I think quite a few people are either not getting notifications, or have not found their way around the new site set up. But everyone will eventually return ... and it's good to see new friends here too.

I am keeping the one and only notification I have received to another email address, ( this site required that I rejoin with a new address ?? ) ... so's I can link to it and catch up on what I might otherwise have missed out on.

Not surprised at the snow down in Tassie. It has been super freezing in Victoria this past week. Seems chookens are not too bothered by cold and snow. ?

You might be interested to read my previous post about my Mandy Welsummer, who has improved so much from her waddles and difficulties walking, she was having. Still very pigeon toed, but seems to be learning to deal with that too.

Cheers ~

 

[Fancychooklady]

Hi Annie, yes this new format takes some getting use to. Glad to hear that your Miss Mandy is on the improve.

 

[satay]

Hi there everyone , too many ppsts to catch up on so I'll just pick up where I left off. My girls are just coming back into lay as the snow begins to fall.

My nephews are in tassie at the moment, not sure where but got some pictures of them enjoying a sled in the snow yesterday.

 

[satay]

My girls are all over their moulting, and I thought it might be a while before any eggs appeared, however Mindy Araucana has begun laying again - weird long shaped eggs, they don't have a more pointy end than the other - both ends are the same shape ... and, they are olive in colour. The only blue one she has laid, she did so on bricks - it broke, she ate the yolk and left the sticky mess for me to clean up.

My other two 'big' girls have not yet begun to lay again, and I doubt that Molly RIR ever will - I think she has run out of eggs. Mandy is eating up a storm and becoming a little more enthusiastic with her 'talking'. She is walking again - albeit slowly - but at least she is up on her feet and not flapping across the ground as she was earlier this year. Treated her legs with vaseline as I finally suspected scaly mite, so decided to smother the mites with the ointment. Something seems to have worked. I now put it on her only once a week. The strange thing is, Molly RIR has no scaly mite - yet they sleep very close together ...... in a nesting box !!! I massage the vaseline up into her leg feathers, and stretch her legs out gently. Often do that just when giving her a cuddle, which she loves.

Cheers all ~~~

She may return to laying. My white faced black spanish is nearly 10 and she still lays the odd egg. Probably only about 20 a year now but not a bad effort for an old gal.

 

[LuckysMum]

Good morning everyone, welcome to all the newcomers.
Its freezing in Perth lately, our chooks aren't laying much either. Poor Lucky died, 2 days ago. My son went out to give them a treat at lunch time and found her torn open in the middle of the lawn. Bear got the blame but after some thought there has been a big cat hanging around so I hope it was that not Bear. Lucky was an escape artist and the only one. Bear has never touched the chooks in 8 years so I can't think that he would just start doing it now. Anyway they are locked in the enclosed coop and run and only let out when we can watch at the moment. She was our first hatch and the only one that had survived I don't have the heart to tell my granddaughters . We still have 2 australorps so I'm hoping they won't notice, though Mia seemed to know who was who. With those dying from old age and Lucky we are down to 16 chooks now. Definitely going to have to get some more.

I hope everyone is coping with the cold weather, Fancy I would love to see some snow but I'm not sure if I could cope with the cold. haha Its good to see everyone gradually finding there way back on here.